4

The great and eternal themes of the noble viscount’s
self-glorification are the services he has rendered to the cause of
constitutional liberty all over the Continent. The world owes him, indeed, the
inventions of the “constitutional” kingdoms of Portugal, Spain, and
Greece,—three political phantoms, only to be compared with the
homunculus of Wagner in "Faust". Portugal, under the yoke of that huge
hill of flesh, Donna Maria da Gloria,[21] backed by a Coburg, “must be looked upon as
one of the substantive Powers of Europe.”—(House of
Commons, March 10, 1835)

At the very time the noble viscount uttered these words, six British ships
of the line anchored at Lisbon, in order to defend the
“substantive” daughter of Don Pedro from the Portuguese people, and
to help her to destroy the constitution she had sworn to defend. Spain, at the
disposition of another Maria,[22] who, although a notorious sinner, has never become
a Magdalen, “holds out to us a fair, a flourishing, and even a formidable
power among the European kingdoms.”—(Lord Palmerston, House of
Commons, March 10, 1837)

Formidable, indeed, to the holders of Spanish Bonds. The noble lord has even
his reasons ready for having delivered the native country of Pericles and
Sophocles to the nominal sway of an idiot Bavarian boy.[23] King Otho
belongs to a country where there exists a free constitution."—(House
of Commons, August 8, 1832.)

A free constitution in Bavaria, the German Bastia! This passes the
licentia poetica of rhetorical flourish, the “legitimate
hopes” held out by Spain, and the “substantive” power of
Portugal. As to Belgium, all Lord Palmerston did for her was burdening her with
a part of the Dutch debt, reducing it by the Province of Luxemburg, and
saddling her with a Coburg dynasty.[24] As to the entente cordiale with France,
waning from the moment he pretended to give it the finishing touch by the
Quadruple alliance of 1834, we have already seen how well the noble lord
understood how to manage it in the instance of Poland, and we shall hear, by
and by, what became of it in his hands.

One of those facts, hardly adverted to by contemporaries, but broadly
marking the boundaries of historical epochs, was the military occupation of
Constantinopie by the Russians, in 1833.

The eternal dream of Russia was at last realized. The barbarian from the icy
banks of the Neva held in his grasp luxurious Byzantium, and the sunlit shores
of the Bosphorus. The self-styled heir to the Greek Emperors occupied however
temporarily the Rome of the East.

“The occupation of Constantinople by Russian troops
sealed the fate of Turkey as an independent power. The fact of Russia having
occupied Constantinople even for the purpose (!) of saving it, was as decisive
a blow to Turkish independence as if the flag of Russia now waved on the
Seraglio.”—(Sir Robert Peel, House of Commons, March 17,
1834)

In consequence of the unfortunate war of 1828-29 and the Treaty of
Adrianople,[25]
the Porte had lost its prestige in the eyes of its own subjects. As usual with
Oriental empires, when the paramount power is weakened, successful revolts of
Pashas broke out. As early as October, 1831, commenced the conflict between the
Sultan and Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who had supported the Porte during
the Greek insurrection. In the spring of 1832, Ibrahim Pasha, his son, marched
his army into Syria, conquered that province by the battle of Homs, crossed the
Taurus, annihilated the Turkish army at the battle of Konieh, and moved on the
way to Stamboul. The Sultan was forced to apply to St. Petersburg on February
2, 1833. On February 17, the French Admiral Roussin arrived at Constantinople,
remonstrated with the Porte two days afterwards, and engaged for the retreat of
the Pasha on certain terms, including the refusal of Russian assistance; but,
unassisted, he was, of course, unable to cope with Russia. “You have
asked for me, and you shall have me.”

On February 20, a Russian squadron suddenly sailed from Sebastopol,
disembarked a large force of Russian troops on the shores of the Bosphorus, and
laid siege to the capital. So eager was Russia for the protection of Turkey,
that a Russian officer was simultaneously despatched to the Pashas of Erzerum
and Trebizond, to inform them that, in the event of Ibrahim's army marching
towards Erzerum, both that place and Trebizond should be immediately protected
by a Russian army. At the end of May, 1833, Count Orloff[26] arrived from St. Petersburg, and
intimated to the Sultan that he had brought with him a little bit of paper,
which the Sultan was to subscribe to, without the concurrence of any minister,
and without the knowledge of any diplomatic agent at the Porte. In this manner
the famous treaty of Unkiar Skelessi[27] was brought about; it was concluded for eight
years to come. By virtue of it the Porte entered into an alliance, offensive
and defensive, with Russia; resigned the right of entering into any new
treaties with other powers, except with the concurrence of Russia, and
confirmed the former Russo-Turkish treaties, especially that of Adrianople. By
a secret article, appended to the treaty, the Porte obliged itself “in
favour of the Imperial Court of Russia to close the Straits of the
Dardanelles—viz., not to allow any foreign man-of-war to enter it under
any pretext whatever.”

To whom was the Czar indebted for occupying Constantinople by his troops and
for transferring, by virtue of the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, the supreme seat
of the Ottoman empire from Constantinople to St. Petersburg? To nobody else but
to the Right Honourable Henry John Viscount Palmerston, Baron Temple, a Peer of
Ireland, a Member of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Knight of the
Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, a Member of Parliament,
and His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

The treaty of Unkiar Skelessi was concluded on July 8, 1833 On July 11,
1833, Mr H. L. Bulwer[28] moved for the production of papers with respect to
the Turco-Syrian affairs. The noble lord opposed the motion

“because the transactions to which the papers
called for referred were incomplete, and the character of the whole
transaction would depend upon its termination. As the results were not yet
known, the motion was premature.”—(House of Commons,
July 11, 1833)

Accused by Mr. Bulwer of not having interfered for the defence of the Sultan
against Mehemet Ali, and thus prevented the advance of the Russian army, he
began that curious system of defence and of confession, developed on later
occasions, the membra disjecta of which I shall now gather together.

”He was not prepared to deny that in the later part of
last year an application was made on the part of the Sultan to this country for
assistance.”—(House of Commons, July 11, 1833)
“The Porte made formal application for assistance in the in the course of
August.”—(House of Commons, August 24, 1833)

No, not in August. “The request of the Porte for naval assistance had
been in the month of October, 1832.”—(House of Commons,
August 28, 1833)

No, it was not in October. “Its assistance was asked by the Porte in
November, 1832.”—(House of Commons, March 17,
1834)

The noble lord is as uncertain of the day when the Porte implored his aid,
as Falstaff was of the number of rogues in buckram suits, who came at his back
in Kendal green. He is not prepared, however, to deny that the armed assistance
offered by Russia was rejected by the Porte, and that he, Lord Palmerston, was
applied to. He refused to comply with its demands. The Porte again applied to
the noble lord. First it sent M. Maurageni to London; then sent Namic Pasha,
who entreated the assistance of a naval squadron on condition of the Sultan
undertaking to defray all the expenses of that squadron, and promising in
requital for such succour the grant of new commercial privileges and advantages
to British subjects in Turkey. So sure was Russia of the noble lord's refusal,
that she joined the Turkish envoy in praying his lordship to afford the succour
demanded. He tells us himself:

“It was but justice that he should state, that so far
from Russia having expressed any jealousy as to this Government granting this
assistance, the Russian ambassador officially communicated to him, while the
request was still under consideration, that he had learned that such an
application had been made, and that, from the interest taken by Russia in the
maintenance and preservation of the Turkish empire, it would afford
satisfaction if ministers could find themselves able to comply with that
request.”—(House of Commons, August 28, 1833)

The noble lord remained, however, inexorable to the demand of the Porte,
although backed by disinterested Russia herself. Then, of course, the Porte
knew what it was expected to do. It understood that it was doomed to make the
wolf shepherd. Still it hesitated, and did not accept Russian assistance till
three months later.

“Great Britain,” says the noble lord,
“never complained of Russia granting that assistance, but, on the
contrary, was glad that Turkey had been able to obtain effectual relief from
any quarter.”—(House of Commons, March 17, 1834)

At whatever epoch the Porte may have implored the aid of Lord Palmerston, he
cannot but own that

“no doubt if England had thought fit to interfere, the
progress of the invading army would have been stopped, and the Russian troops
would not have been called in.”—(House of Commons,
July 11, 1833)

Why then did he not “think fit” to interfere and to keep the
Russians out?

First he pleads want of time. According to his own statement the
conflict between the Porte and Mehemet Ali arose as early as October, 1831,
while the decisive battle of Konieh was not fought till December 21, 1832.
Could be find no time during all this period? A great battle was won by Ibrahim
Pasha,[29] in
July, 1832, and again he could find no time from July to December. But he was
all that time waiting for a formal application on the part of the
Porte which, according to his last version, was not made till the 3rd of
November. “Was he then,” asks Sir Robert Peel, “so ignorant
of what was passing in the Levant, that he must wait for a formal
application?”—(House of Commons, March 17, 1834.)
And from November, when the formal application was made, to the latter part of
February, there elapsed again four long months, and Russia did not arrive until
February 20, 1833. Why did not he?

But he has better reasons in reserve.

The Pasha of Egypt was but a rebellious subject, and the Sultan was the
Suzerain.

“As it was a war against the sovereign by a subject,
and that sovereign was in alliance with the King of England, it would have been
inconsistent with good faith to have had any communication with the
Pasha.”—(House of Commons, August 28, 1833)

Etiquette prevented the noble lord from stopping Ibrahim’s
armies. Etiquette forbade his giving instructions to his consul at
Alexandria to use his influence with Mehemet Ali. Like the Spanish grandee, the
noble lord would rather let the Queen burn to ashes than infringe on
etiquette, and interfere with her petticoats. As it happens the noble
lord had already, in 1832, accredited consuls and diplomatic agents to the
“subject” of the Sultan without the consent of the Sultan; he had
entered into treaties with Mehemet, altering existing regulations and
arrangements touching matters of trade and revenue, and establishing other ones
in their stead; and he did so without having the consent of the Porte
beforehand, or caring for its approbation afterwards—(House of
Commons, February 23, 1848.)

Accordingly, we are told by Earl Grey, the then chief of the noble viscount,
that “they had at the moment extensive commercial relations with Mehemet
Ali which it would not have been their interest to
disturb.”—(House of Commons, February 4, 1834)
What, commercial relations with the “rebellious subject”?

But the noble viscount's fleets were occupied in the Douro, and the Tagus,
and blockading the Scheldt, and doing the services of midwife at the birth of
the constitutional empires of Portugal, Spain, and Belgium, and he was,
therefore, not in a position to spare one single ship—(House of
Commons, July 11, 1833, and March 17, 1834)

But what the Sultan insisted on was precisely naval assistance. For
argument's sake, we will grant the noble lord to have been unable to dispose of
one single vessel. But there are great authorities assuring us that what was
wanted was not a single vessel, but only a single word on the part of
the noble lord. There is Lord Mahon, who had just been employed at the Foreign
Office under Sir Robert Peel, when he made this statement. There is Admiral
Codrington,[30]
the destroyer of the Turkish fleet at Navarino.

“Mehemet Ali,” he states, “had of old felt
the strength of our representations on the subject of the evacuation of the
Morea. He had then received orders from the Porte to resist all applications to
induce him to evacuate it, at the risk of his head, and he did resist
accordingly, but at last prudently yielded, and evacuated the
Morea.”—(House of Commons, April 20, 1836.)

There is the Duke of Wellington.

“If, in the session of 1832 or 1833, they had plainly
told Mehemet Ali that he should not carry on his contest in Syria and Asia
Minor, they would have put an end to the war without the risk of allowing the
Emperor of Russia to send a fleet and an army to
Constantinople.“—(House of Lords, February 4,
1834)

But there are still better authorities. There is the noble lord himself.

“Although,” he says, “his Majesty's
Government did not comply with the demand of the Sultan for naval assistance,
yet the moral assistance of England was afforded; and the communications made
by the British Government to the Pasha of Egypt, and to Ibrahim Pasha
commanding in Asia Minor, did materially contribute to bring about that
arrangement (of Kiutayah) between the Sultan and the Pasha, by which that war
was terminated.”—(House of Commons, March 17,
1834)

There is Lord Derby, then Mr. Stanley and a member of the Palmerston
Cabinet, who

“boldly asserts that what stopped the progress of
Mehemet Ali was the distinct declaration of France and England that they would
not permit the occupation of Constantinople by his
troops.”—(House of Commons, March 17, 1834)

Thus then, according to Lord Derby and to Lord Palmerston himself, it was
not the Russian squadron and army at Constantinople, but it was a distinct
declaration on the part of the British consular agent at Alexandria, that
stopped Ibrahim's victorious march upon Constantinople, and brought about the
arrangement of Kiutayah, by virtue of which Mehemet Ali obtained, besides
Egypt, the Pashalic of Syria, of Adana and other places, added as an appendage.
But the noble lord thought fit not to allow his consul at Alexandria to make
this distinct declaration till after the Turkish army was annihilated,
Constantinople overrun by the Cossack, the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi signed by
the Sultan, and pocketed by the Czar.

If want of time and want of fleets forbade the noble lord to assist the
Sultan, and a superfluity of etiquette to check the Pasha, did he at least
employ his ambassador at Constantinople to guard against excessive influence on
the part of Russia, and to keep her insuence confined within narrow bounds?
Quite the contrary. In order not to clog the movements of Russia, the lord took
good care to have no ambassador at all at Constantinople during the most fatal
period of the crisis.

“If ever there was a country in which the weight and
station of an ambassador were useful—or a period in which that weight and
station might be advantageously exerted—that country was Turkey, during
the six months before the 8th of July.“—(Lord Mahon, House of
Commons, April 26, 1836.)

Lord Palmerston tells us, that the British ambassador, Sir Stratford,[31] left
Constantinople in September, 1832—that Lord Ponsonby, then at Naples, was
appointed in his place in November, and that “difficulties experienced in
making the necessary arrangements for his conveyance,” although a
man-of-war was in waiting for him, “and the unfavourable state of the
weather prevented his getting to Constantinople until the end of May,
1833.”—(House of Commons, March 17, 1834.)

The Russian was not yet in, and Lord Ponsonby was accordingly ordered to
require seven months for sailing from Naples to Constantinople.

But why should the noble lord prevent the Russians from occupying
Constantinople? “He, for his part, had great doubts that any
intention to partition the Ottoman empire at all entered into the
policy of the Russian Government.”—(House of Commons,
February 14 1839.)

Certainly not. Russia wants not to partition the empire, but to keep the
whole of it. Besides the security Lord Palmerston possessed in this
doubt, he had another security

“in the doubt whether it enters into the
policy of Russia at present to accomplish the object, and a third
‘security’ in his third ‘doubt’ whether the
Russian nation (just think of a Russian nation!) would be prepared for
that transference of power, of residence, and authority to the southern
provinces which would be the necessary consequence of the conquest by Russia of
Constantinople.”—(House of Commons, July 11,
1833)

Besides these negative arguments, the noble lord had an affirmative one:

“If they had quietly beheld the temporary occupation
of the Turkish capital by the forces of Russia, it was because they had full
confidence in the honour and good faith of Russia. The Russian Government, in
granting its aid to the Sultan, has pledged its honour, and in that pledge he
reposed the most implicit confidence.”—(House of Commons,
July 11, 1853)

So inaccessible, indestructible, integral, imperishable, inexpugnable,
incalculable, incommensurable, and irremediable, so boundless, dauntless, and
matchless was the noble lord's confidence, that still on March 17, 1834, when
the Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi had become a fait accompli, he went on
declaring that, “in their confidence ministers were not deceived.”
Not his is the fault if nature has developed his bump of confidence to
altogether anomalous dimensions.